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The Japan Association for Language Teaching 全国語学教育学会 Next Meeting  Saturday, May 23rd, 2015, 10:00 – 17:00             Featured Morning Speaker: Joyce Cunningham Tokiwa University Professor (Ibaraki University Professor Emerita) Morning presentation (10:30 - 11:45): Anne of Green Gables in the Language Classroom You will be invited to participate in a short introduction to the much-loved novel,  Anne of Green Gables.  Most Japanese students seem to enjoy this story and engage in the activities with enthusiasm.  Eastern Canada will be described and you will gain an initial understanding of the people, attitudes and values that form this part of Canada.  Above all, we will focus on Prince Edward Island and the story of its popular heroine, Anne.  A few key scenes in the movie will be viewed and accompanied by worksheets for classroom use.  You will also become acquainted with the author, L. M. Montgomery, and learn more about the details of the story that is now so well-known throughout
Next Ibaraki JALT Meeting Saturday, February 14th, 2015, 09:30 – 17:00 at Tsukuba Gakuin Daigaku  Azuma 3-1, Tsukuba The Japan Association for Language Teaching          全国語学教育学会         (Ibaraki Chapter) Featured Morning Speaker: Maria Gabriela SCHMIDT  University of Tsukuba--Associate Professor Morning presentation (10:00 - 11:45): Listening and Pronunciation - Keep an eye on the mother tongue Maria Gabriela Schmidt To combine listening and pronunciation in language teaching is not that simple. Each belong to the opposite side of the sound, but listening is mostly invisible to us, and pronunciation is on the surface. When a student cannot understand the listening part, we will not be aware immediately, but if the sound of spoken language does not fit, it is obvious. - The approach will begin with the influence of L1 our mother tongue and then will switch to listening and pronunciation in the classroom and what we should consider important for the exercises.  Bio: Since Sept. 201
     The Japan Association for Language Teaching  -JALT-   Sunday, Sep, 28th, 13:30 – 17:00   Presentations:   1. Popular Songs in the Language Learning Classroom   (13:30-14:15) by Robert Betts (Tokiwa University)   This workshop demonstrates the use of popular songs in the classroom to practice reading, writing, listening, and speaking in the language classroom. The use of songs in the practice of language teaching is well documented in foreign language learning research. Songs selected from popular music motivates learners to explore language outside the normal structure for language learning activities in the classroom. In addition, the use of popular songs encourages students to listen to and sing songs in the target language.  The criteria for selecting popular songs are based on the following ideas: a) purpose – the purpose for using a song in the classroom (learn vocabulary/practice skills/content or message), b) length – the time allocated for the activity (long
Previous Meeting - Saturday, May 17 全国語学教育学会      The Japan Association for Language Teaching  -JALT-  Co-sponsor : Ibaraki University 
 Presentation:
 1. Featured Speaker Presentation (14:30~ 16:00) Vocabulary and textbooks: What textbooks do, what they don't, and what you can do by Dale Brown (Osaka University) The commonsense view of vocabulary learning is that learning a word means learning its meaning. Vocabulary researchers, however, have established that there is a lot more to learning a word than this. Full 
mastery of a word includes, among other things, knowing its spoken and written form, knowing the concepts it can refer to and what other words it is related to, and knowing the grammatical and collocational patterns 
it occurs in. Classroom observation studies appear to show that teachers, for the most part, take the commonsense view and focus on word meaning. This presentation will begin by reporting on a study which 
aimed to find out whether the same is true of textb

First Meeting in 2014 - Sunday, Feb, 9th

Aloha, The meeting has NOT been cancelled but expected attendance will be low with highways and local roads closed. Enjoy the snow! 全国語学教育学会      The Japan Association for Language Teaching  -JALT-   Sunday, Feb, 9th, 10:00 – 17:00 Meeting   Presentations:   1. University Accreditation: It's Impact on EFL Teaching (10:00-12:00) by Bern Mulvey ( Iwate University)  As of 2004, all universities in Japan must submit to an external accreditation evaluation, to be repeated every seven years. The universities receive written assessments in multiple categories from one of four official accrediting agencies. These assessments are intended to provide detailed evaluations of curriculum appropriateness and teacher effectiveness, not to mention school/program effectiveness in meeting mission objectives. All reports are publicized. The universities also receive grades: pass, probation, or fail. In other words, at least in theory, university accreditation represents an unparalleled oppor
October Meeting Saturday, Oct, 5th, 13:00 – 17:00 
Presentations:
 1. Older students as both teachers and learners by Tadashi Ishida (13:00-14:00) The presenter will discuss possible reasons Japanese older learners have for being interested in studying English. He will also report on his activities to help them study English by demonstrations of certain aspects of Japanese culture and a program that matches up non-Japanese visitors with volunteer tour guides. The presentation will end with a case study illustrating what happened at a festival where international students from Waseda University carried a portable shrine with the help of residents of a downtown Tokyo community through the medium of English. BIO: Tadashi Ishida has been teaching English to senior citizens at community centers in Tokyo, sponsored by the Taito Ward Board of Education for the past 30 years. He is the Founder and Coordinator of JALT Lifelong Language Learning SIG. 2. English Rakugo and English teaching by Tat
Our first meeting of the new year will be on Sunday, Feb, 17th. Join us at the beautiful campus of Tsukuba Gakuin University. We especially appreciate their support and cooperation in providing us a comfortable meeting place! The Japan Association for Language Teaching  -JALT-   Co - sponsor : GALE SIG   Presentations:   by Diane Hawley Nagatomo (Ochanomizu University)  by Rie Koizumi (Juntendo University) Sunday, Feb, 17th, 13:00 – 17:00 1 . From Dutiful Daughters to English Professors: How Gender Shapes the Professional Lives of Japanese Female University English Teachers (13:00-14:00) This presentation examines the role of gender in the professional identity development seven Japanese female university English teachers ranging in age from their early thirties to their early sixties. The participants’ female gender will be shown to be at the heart of their professional identity-- first by being guided into English study from an early age by parents because of its perception as an

Sunday, December 9 Meeting

The Japan Association for Language Teaching  -JALT-   Co - sponsor : Ibaraki University Presentations:   1. Coaching in TPR Storytelling’s Core “Circling” Technique (13:00-14:00)   Dominic Jones ( Sendai Seiyo Gakuin University)   This workshop demonstrates the teaching skill of Circling and coaches, teachers in its use, so that they can add it to their teaching tool kit. Circling is used to provide multiple comprehensible repetitions of the target language in a fun way that improves your students’ language acquisition. Circling is a core skill of TPRS. TPRS is a teaching method that has evolved from Dr Asher’s total physical response teaching tool that uses reading and storytelling to teach language using comprehensible input. 2. Sign Language in the Language-teaching Classroom (14:15-15:45)   Mariko Miyao, Tsukuba Gakuin University Cecilia Ikeguchi, Tsukuba Gakuin University Martin Pauly, Tsukuba University of Technology Deaf and hard-of-hearing students are entering mainstream s